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WebSphere Commerce Version 8
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  2. User Guide

    The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.

  3. Troubleshooting
  4. WebSphere Commerce Search

    If you encounter problems while you use WebSphere Commerce Search, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

  5. Troubleshooting: Search does not work after you run restoreDefault.bat

    After you run the restoreDefault.bat utility, you might notice that the search index does not work in your store. To fix the issue, your need to preprocess and rebuild the search index.

  • User Guide

    The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.

    • Planning

      Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.

    • Installing

      Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.

    • Migrating

      Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.

    • Deploying

      The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.

    • Operating
    • Integrating

      Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.

    • Administering
    • Tutorials

      WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.

    • Samples
    • Developing

      The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.

    • Compliance

      The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.

    • Securing

      These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.

    • Performance
    • Troubleshooting
      • WebSphere Commerce messages
      • Contacting HCL Customer Support

        HCL Customer Support provides assistance with product defects. Contact HCL if you require assistance with an WebSphere Commerce problem.

      • Installation issues

        Both installing and uninstalling WebSphere Commerce encompass a wide range of steps. If you encounter problems, refer to the following resources for assistance.

      • WebSphere Application Server issues

        Review this information when you encounter problems with the WebSphere Application Server that is associated with your WebSphere Commerce instance.

      • Configuration issues

        If you encounter problems while configuring WebSphere Commerce, refer to the following resources for assistance.

      • Web server issues

        Review this information when you encounter problems with the Web server that is associated with your WebSphere Commerce instance.

      • General issues

        Review the following information when you encounter any general problems with WebSphere Commerce.

      • Update Installer issues

        If you encounter issues with the WebSphere Commerce Update Installer, refer to the following topics.

      • Fix pack issues

        If you encounter problems during the installation or uninstallation of the WebSphere Commerce fix pack, review the following issues:

      • WebSphere Commerce Developer fix pack issues

        Common fix pack installation problems and solutions for WebSphere Commerce Developer.

      • Deployment

        The troubleshooting information for deployment is divided into the following categories: Custom WebSphere Commerce database assets, Custom WebSphere Commerce Enterprise Application (EAR) or Java EE assets and Custom WebSphere Commerce Web server assets.

      • Access control problems

        Access control problems are often indicated by generic application errors with error message keys such as _ERR_USER_AUTHORITY. The first step in problem determination is to enable tracing for the access control component.

      • Catalogs

        If you encounter problems when you are managing or displaying catalogs, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • Contracts

        If you encounter problems working with contracts, review the following troubleshooting topics.

      • Messages

        Problems encountered when sending e-mail for error notification.

      • Workspaces

        If you encounter problems while using workspaces, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • Management Center

        If you encounter problems while using the Management Center, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • Aurora starter store

        If you encounter problems when you use the Aurora starter store, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • Changed data

        When data is changed in the WebSphere Commerce database, it will sometimes appear not to have any effect on the server functionality -- specifically, when the values are modified directly through loading utilities or through SQL statements. Certain tables are cached for performance reasons, and their values will not be reread by WebSphere Commerce until the server is restarted or the registry is refreshed. Examples of cached tables are the STORE table or the URLREG table.

      • Promotion code problem

        When you try to log on to the storefront in a B2C store, the Logon URL is used to log on to the system. If information already exists for the guest customer, the guest customer's basic information, such as their shopping cart, is merged with the registered user. You might experience the following problem with the shopping cart merge because of promotion codes.

      • Guest shopping in the advanced B2B direct store

        When you try to log on to the storefront in an advanced B2B direct store, the Logon URL is used to log on to the system. If information already exists for the guest shopper, the guest shopper's basic information, such as their shopping cart, is merged with the registered user. You might experience the following problem with the shopping cart merge because of multiple pending shopping carts for the registered user.

      • Enabling error message details in the storefront

        The storefront hides specific error details from shoppers by default for security purposes. For example, instead of seeing a 404 error page with details, shoppers instead see a generic error page. If you need to enable error message details in the storefront, to satisfy a particular business requirement, you can enable verbose error messages in the configuration file.

      • Publishing a store archive
      • Storefront categories do not display after you publish a store archive

        After successfully publishing a store archive, the category navigation menu is not displayed in your storefront. For example, in the Aurora starter store, the Department menu does not display any categories.

      • Storefront does not display catalog filters

        When a catalog filter is applied to your store, the store continues to display catalog entries that are not included in the filtered catalog.

      • WebSphere Commerce Developer

        You might experience the following problems when you use WebSphere Commerce Developer.

      • Inventory issues
      • Logging issues
      • Member group issues
      • Promotions issues
      • Tax

        If you encounter problems while using the tax codes or calculation codes, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • Utilities

        If you encounter problems while using WebSphere Commerce utilities, refer to the following troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • WebSphere Commerce Search

        If you encounter problems while you use WebSphere Commerce Search, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

        • Search processing performance

          Preprocessing and building the search index are required to propagate site changes into WebSphere Commerce search.

        • Authentication error messages in search utilities

          Authentication errors might occur when you run WebSphere Commerce Search utilities with application security enabled.

        • Recover Solr External files

          If index data including external .txt files has been lost due to data corruption or accidental deletion, you can regenerate the files.

        • Troubleshooting: Search does not work after you run restoreDefault.bat

          After you run the restoreDefault.bat utility, you might notice that the search index does not work in your store. To fix the issue, your need to preprocess and rebuild the search index.

        • Increase the WebSphere Commerce Server timeout value to resolve socket timeout issues when Search is undergoing heavy use

          You may experience timeout issues when the Search server is under a heavy working load. This situation can arise when Search server resources are dedicated to internal activities, such as calculating image or product display sequences. To alleviate this problem, increase the WebSphere Commerce server timeout value.

        • The Search server log may show excessive numbers of file deletions. This is rarely a problem, but a workaround exists.

          When building the unstructured index, you may see an excessive number of entries in the search server log indicating "Deleting documents from Solr with query." This behavior is caused by the deletion of temporary test files associated with product attachments. It is generally benign and can be ignored. If the log shows that deleting these files is taking an excessive amount of time, and you do not use product attachments, you can use a simple workaround to improve indexing performance.

        • Product sequencing issues

          Set a predefined order for the appearance of your products in WebSphere Commerce Search results.

        • Diagnose slow page load times

          Slow response times to search queries can have various causes. A systematic process for investigating such delays is provided.

        • Product index query result is missing extension index fields

          Fields defined in the extension index are not returned when making search queries against the product index.

        • Search delta index does not complete

          After making a change to catalog data from within Management Center for WebSphere Commerce and launching Store Preview, the resulting Search delta index does not complete as expected. This problem can be intermittent.

      • Search engine optimization (SEO)

        If you encounter problems using search engine optimization (SEO), review the following issues:

      • REST services

        If you encounter problems with WebSphere Commerce REST services, refer to the troubleshooting information to help determine the problem and find possible solutions.

      • Staging server

        Issues you may encounter while using the stagingprop utility.

      • Administrator is locked out from Administration Console

        In the event you are locked out from the Administration Console, you need to update the database directly to unlock your account.

WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0.1.1 or laterWebSphere Commerce DeveloperWebSphere Commerce Version 8.0.0.9 or later

Troubleshooting: Search does not work after you run restoreDefault.bat

After you run the restoreDefault.bat utility, you might notice that the search index does not work in your store. To fix the issue, your need to preprocess and rebuild the search index.

Solution

Preprocess and build the search index.
  1. Preprocess the WebSphere Commerce Search index data.
  2. Build the WebSphere Commerce Search index.
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